~Victoria's Blog~

Sunday, July 22, 2012

The Amazing Spiderman - Just saw this in theatres. As a huge fan of superhero movies, Spiderman being my favorite, this was a must-see for us. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone bring fresh life into the series, and if you are a fan of the Tobey McGuire led trilogy, you will love this new one as well

Ted - If you are a Seth Macfarlane fan (Family Guy, American Dad, Cleveland Show) and enjoy his sense of humor, Ted is definitely worth a watch. It was way more emotional than I expected it to be though!

Katy Perry: Part of Me - As long-standing Katy Perry fan I was so excited to see this film. Footage of her as a youngster and interviews with Perry and those close to her are interspersed with performances from her California Dreams Tour. I caught her concert in Toronto and found it fascinating to see behind-the-scene footage. Very inspiring

Can't Miss Show

MasterChef - I have watched Hell's Kitchen for a long time, and MasterChef is another great show with Chef Gordon Ramsay. MasterChef features talented home chefs and a much softer side of Ramsay. This season features a contestant who is visually impaired and a huge inspiration to fellow contestants and viewers alike.

Great Book

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin - I am almost done this book and have enjoyed it immensely! Rubin sets out on a year long project examining a variety of areas in her life, focused on improving to gain a greater sense of happiness and what exactly that means. Makes me eager to do my own happiness project!

Hot Albums

Katy Perry's Teenage Dream - Bought the original album, then bought the deluxe version that was released later. Every song is a must listen.

Rock of Ages Soundtrack - Loved the movie, love singing along to the 80's inspired soundtrack. So catchy!

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Hey guys! I wanted to let you know the latest products I bought from Sephora! This has really become one of my favourite stores lately and I wanted to share with you some cool products I bought.

First of all I got a bronzer from my favourite makeup brand, Too Faced, called Caribbean in a Compact – Snow Bunny. This bronzer has four colors in it – white, dark brown, pink and beigey-bronze. This bronzer is really great if you have fair skin because it’s not too dark at all. This cost about $37 but I was returning a product (Clinique set I will tell you more about) that was $39 so it kinda worked out even. I have been using it a lot lately and love the gold shimmer look I get from it. If you want a darker bronzer I would recommend Too Faced’s Sun Bunny. I use my big bronzer brush from Ecotools to apply this.

I purchased the Clinique Acne Solutions Kit, which is “a skincare routine to cleanse, treat, and hydrate acne-prone skin.” This set comes with a cleansing foam face wash, clarifying lotion, spot treatment gel, and a moisturizer and came in a cute carrying case. This kit was a massive disappointment for me unfortunately. I used it for about a week and developed dry scaly itchy patches all over my jawline that eventually spread to my neck and cheeks. I am still getting rid of the last of it. This is a product I ended up returning to Sephora. I know other people online had the same complaint and they suggested either stopping use of the moisturizer or clarifying lotion but I didn’t want to spend any longer experimenting with it after seeing what it had done to my skin. I had been using the clinique liquid facial soap for oily skin, clarifying lotion for type 3 and dramatically different moisturizing gel and that’s what I have gone back to using. I was excited about this product but it ended up being just way too harsh for my skin. If you really want to try a Clinique Acne Solutions product I would recommend maybe getting trying a combination of the cleansing foam, spot healing gel and adding in a clearing concealer.

I had been interested in purchasing a lipstick or some type of product with color. After contemplating on a color for quite awhile, I decided on Sephora Collection Lip Attitude – Star in the shade extravagant dahlia which is a bright pink shimmer. This product is not just a drying lipstick – it is a combination of a lipstick and a lipgloss. I like to put on a lipbalm first so my lips aren’t dried out and cracked through the lipstick.

Because of my dry scalp, I am very picky about what shampoos I can use. I read that John Frieda’s Brilliant Brunette shampoo has very harsh chemicals and is very drying for you, so I knew I wanted to stop using that. I had been using more Bumble and Bumble products so I chose their Seaweed Shampoo to try. I searched shampoos that were healthy for the scalp and this and the Tonic Shampoo came up. A girl at Sephora told me that the tonic shampoo works really well but it smells incredibly strongly of tea tree oil, which is a great ingredient for your scalp but I don’t like the smell of. I have still been using my Body Shop Banana conditioner with it. I like this shampoo but I don’t know if it is that much better than using the Body Shop Banana shampoo – I may purchase that for next time just because I go through shampoo so fast that one that is $20+ is a big expense. After I get out of the shower I use Bumble and Bumble Prep. I may slowly add some more Bumble and Bumble products to my collection because I think it’s a really good brand.

One trip to Sephora I found an Aquolina Pink Sugar set – one of my favourite scents – with a full size eau de toilette, a body lotion and a shower gel for only $25 – this is an amazing deal since just the eau de toilette is normally nearly $50. I don’t think they have this package anymore because it is not available on the website. I was glad I was able to pick it up when I did, although I have yet to use the shower gel and body lotion, it’s nice to be able to coordinate all your scented products.

Although I didn’t want to use the Bumble and Bumble Tonic Shampoo, I did purchase the Bumble and Bumble Tonic Lotion. This comes in a little spray bottle and before bed I will spray it right on the dry parts of my scalp so I can treat it and then wash it out in the morning.

I got a shampoo/shower gel/bubble bath from Philosophy that smells AMAZING! It is called Sugar Sprinkles Funnel Cake and it is pink and sparkly and gorgeous! It lathers up awesomely, looks sparkly but the sparkles don’t stay on, and is very moisturizing. The one qualm I have about it is that the scent doesn’t last after your shower, but it does smell awesome while you are showering. I wish that they made this in a lotion as well so you could lengthen the amount of time the scent lasted. They have a couple other funnel cake flavours – fruity berry and chocolate lemon which I thought were alright but I didn’t like as much. You can get all 3 in a set though if you really like them. The only other product this sugar sprinkles funnel cake scent comes in is a lip shine.

The other latest products I bought from Sephora were Benefit Coralista and Boyfriend Pulse Point Oil, which I have talked about in previous blogs. That ends it with my Sephora haul! What have you bought from Sephora?

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

While at Sephora I came across a scent that I really hadn’t planned on purchasing – Boyfriend by Kate Walsh. The last perfume I had been using was Pink Sugar by Aquolina, which is a really sweet cotton candy scent. Boyfriend is definitely more of an older, sophisticated scent which I felt like trying as I have graduated from university and moving on to a new stage in my life. I came across it because I was looking for Pink Sugar in a rollerball and in the rollerball section they were out of it but I smelled Boyfriend and really liked it. A rollerball is a great way to sample a scent. Because I was trying it for the first time, I didn’t really want to make an investment in the full eau de toilette. How Kate Walsh (Addison from Grey’s Anatomy/Private Practice) designed this scent was supposed to “capture the scent of a guy on a girl: a man’s cologne mixed with perfume” and that’s definitely what it seems to smell like. According to Sephora, the notes include dark plum, myrrh, night blooming jasmine, benzoin tears, skin musk, golden amber and vanilla woods. They describe the style as sensual, vanilla and amber. Usually I like scents that are fruity or clean but I love that this scent is so different from anything else I’ve tried. I love that it’s in a rollerball because I can throw it in my purse and not have to worry about it leaking, and I can apply it in the car without spraying it and having everyone else in the car smell like it (lol an issue with my boyfriend!).

I purchased the coralista blush from Benefit. I had been using my baked on blush from The Body Shop but it is very pink and this one is more of a coral shade so I think it is more natural. It looks amazing and even the container is gorgeous! The only quams I have are that the brush it comes with sheds quite a bit, but you could always just use your own blush brush.

So those were a sampling of some of the products I bought this summer! Tons of fun new products out there, and there were tons of great sales! What did you buy this summer?

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

I went to Pink not too long ago and I was super excited to go because I hadn’t been for so long. I really like the bags that they have there. I have a really big gray one with polka dots that I put all my clothes in to travel, and I have a pink leopard print one for all my ‘getting ready’ stuff. I picked up a pink zip-up tote for my sister, which she has been using as a diaper bag. I also got a cross-body bag:

This one is not the exact bag I have, and although I recently bought it I don’t see it on the website. It is similar to these ones but it has a zip-up top and an extra zip-up section in the front. I really like it because if I am going out and only want to take maybe my wallet and cell phone. It is so much lighter and you don’t have to carry it or constantly readjust it on your shoulder so I am very happy I got it.

I had purchased the Aquolina pink sugar hair perfume awhile ago and wanted to get the rollerball so I had a portable one to put in my purse. Unfortunately when I was in Sephora they had none in stock, so I ended up getting the eau de toilette instead. Love this scent, so sugary and delicious, great scent for summer!

One of my favourite purchases this summer was definitely the Urban Decay Naked Palette. I had heard so many rave reviews and hadn’t planned in advance on buying it but wanted a new palette. I have two palettes I had gotten for Christmas but after having been dropped a number of times they were falling apart and a lot of my favourite colors had been pretty used up. But after I had decided to buy it, they didn’t have any in either (this was when I went to get my pink sugar rollerball, so they must have been really low on stock at the time). Next time I was in, I asked the girl who worked there if she knew when they’d be getting them in stock. I ended up totally lucking out because although there was a waiting list of forty, they had just received about sixty so I got one before they were even put on the shelves. Before that they had only been getting six or seven at a time so they could never keep them in stock. If you haven’t heard of this palette, it has twelve eyeshadows in shimmery neutral colors, although there are a few darker ones as well. I wanted a palette that was mainly neutral because I don’t go to dark with my eyeshadow, so to me any palette with mainly dark shadows would be a waste. It comes with an eyeshadow brush and a mini Urban Decay primer potion. This is such an AMAZING palette! Gorgeous colors, super pigmented so you don’t have to keep layered on coats.

Monday, August 22, 2011

This summer I went to Lush for my very first time. I had heard a lot of good things about it, but there are no locations that are close by. I didn’t buy anything at the first Lush I went to because to be honest I was a bit overwhelmed. I didn’t know much about the products or how they worked so I just took a quick peek. After getting home, I visited their website and took a better look at which products interested me. The first thing I got when I went next was Rock Star Soap. This soap smells like vanilla candy – it is kind of a cotton candy-ish smell and it smells delicious! I really love the color of it as well - pretty pink! Normally I’m not into bar soaps because I find them very drying but this one I find doesn’t do that. You can get them to cut off a piece of whatever size you like so the price can vary. The second thing I got was the Comforter Bubble Bar. This one is described as bringing a real sense of comfort just like a comforter would. This has sweet blackcurrents, cypress oil and cassis absolute. It smells fruity but like a ‘dark raspberry’ kind of scent. You crumble some off into the tub under running water and it bubbles right up. It actually does a really good job at bubbling, much better than I expected. You can use as much or as little of it per bath as you would like. It turns the water a pinky-purply color too.

I had been thinking for awhile about using a brow powder to define my brows, and I found that my favourite makeup company, Too Faced, makes a brow kit. This is a palette with a bunch of items inside that really helps you get your brows looking great. First, it has illustrations at the top that explain step-by-step how to use each item. This is helpful so you know exactly what products to use and in what order to use them. It has 3 different stencils, which you hold up to your brows and fill in to determine where to tweeze and which areas to grow in (the kit comes with tweezers, actually pretty decent ones – for some reason I thought they wouldn’t be very good but they are really good. There is two brow powders, Blonde and Brunette. The blonde one is kind of a grey-brown color and the brunette one is very dark brown. Although my brows are dark, I can mainly use the blonde color, and I just add in a little extra brunette powder to use it up and to darken them a bit. Next, it has a setting wax to hold everything in place. It comes with a little pencil to get some extra definition – I find that I don’t really need it that much, but if your brows are really sparse and you want to add a bit more shape to them it’s great to have. This is a brown color. Lastly, there is a pink highlighting powder. It’s more of a cream than a powder, which other people have complained about but I really like it because it gives it a thickness and staying power. The kit itself was something like $41 but I find it’s definitely worth it because by the time you add up the individual items it gets pricey. Also, some of those items are hard to find on their own, and to have them in their own convenient box is really nice. I love the finished look of my brows after using this kit so I am very glad I bought this.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

So I wanted to do a massive summer haul because I’ve went shopping pretty much weekly since summer officially started. I’ll try to give you a good idea of what the product is and where you can find it! If I have already mentioned a product in a previous blog I’ll skip it.

I’ve bought a few books from Coles or Chapters this summer – Six Rules of Maybe by Deb Caletti, Seventeen’s Ultimate Guide to Style, and Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares. Unfortunately, I have yet to read ANY of these books so although they all look great I will have to wait to give you a review on them! I just finished Stay by Deb Caletti, a book I bought not too long ago and it was amazing! It is about a girl who is in hiding with her dad from her obsessive boyfriend and it is such a good, gripping read. I definitely recommend it, all of her books are fantastic. You can check out her website at www.debcaletti.com.

I’ve spent some time at The Body Shop and it’s really been one of my favourite stores lately. I am obsessed with the mango and sweet lemon lip butters. They are great lip balms that smell nice without being overwhelming and they moisturize really well. I've stocked up on a few so I can store them in some different places so I never have to worry about having dry lips. Normally I don't like a lip balm or gloss where I have to apply with my finger but these ones are not too bad.

I bought a blush from the Body Shop called baked on blush in the shade 01 petal (it comes in two different shades and this one is brighter). This is my absolute favourite blush right now, it is a super flattering color. I swirl together both the pink and the highlight color. I use the blusher brush from The Body Shop as well to apply. I bought a primer from there as well called ‘Matte It’ which is a mattifying primer. They also have a moisturizing primer if you have drier skin. I use this primer as my very first makeup step (after I moisturize).

Sunday, July 24, 2011

I wanted to fill you in on what I am currently using for my skincare routine - actually most of these are fairly recent as I have changed a lot from even when I wrote my face wash post.

The face wash I am using now is Clinique Liquid Facial Soap from Sephora. It's specifically designed for oily skin and it has a good clean feeling without leaving it tight. It doesn't have an overly strong scent and lathers up a bit but is not as thick of a lather as the Clean and Clear face wash I'd been using. Because my skin tends to get pretty oily in the summer, I've been finding this nice to use.

A few times a week I use Clean and Clear's morning burst facial scrub in the shower, but morning and night I use Clinique's Clarifying Lotion 3 which is actually a liquid exfoliator, something I had never used before. I think it's worth the money to spend a bit extra on the Clinique line because it's specially designed for combination-oily skin which most drugstore products are not. I always wash my face before I exfoliate because I want my skin to be clean first. I use both the face wash and clean and clear scrub in the shower in the morning and then I use the clinique clarifying lotion when I get out (that's the first thing I do after my shower). Apparently if you use this line for just a couple weeks every day it cuts down on your oil production.

For a moisturizer I use Clinique's Dramatically Different Moisturizing Gel - I think I have mentioned this in other posts. I use this every morning and night and I am in love with it! It is the perfect moisturizer for someone with combination-oily skin. Definitely all time favorite and I have tried quite a lot of different ones. I tried Nivea ones that I bought at Shoppers and they were way too rich and I broke out like crazy.

I use Clean and Clear Invisible Blemish Treatment for any pimples before I moisturize and it is amazing. I stopped using it for 2 weeks and noticed that I was getting bad breakouts and when I started using it again my skin got much better.

I use a Balea eye roller from Shoppers to help with dark circles. I think most eye rollers are quite similar to each other - I don't have eye puffiness but I want it to help with dark circles. I use this morning and night - not sure how much of a difference it makes but it feels really nice.

Those are basically all of the products I use on a regular basis for my skincare routine. Hope this was informative! Thanks!